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Book ' S 5 <oS 



MR, BIGELOW'S DISCOURSE 



«\ i 'ii i J»i:%i ii 



PRESIDENT HARRISON 



Printed by Israel Ami 



MAN'S FRAILTY, AND GOD'S IMMUTABILITY. 



A DISCOURSE, 



PRE&CHED IN TAUNTON, 



On Friday, May 14th, 1841 



DAY OF NATIONAL FAST, 



COMMEMORATION OF THE DEATH 



WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON, 



PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



BY ANDREW BIGELOW, 

Pastor Of the First Congregational Society in Taunton. 



"Know ye not that there is a Great Man fallen this day 

in Israel'" II Samuel in. 38. 



TAUNTON:" 
Printed by Israel Amsbury, Jr, 

1841. 



.351*5 






,YZj=^ 



The following Discourse, though published at the request of 
friends whose approbation is valued and whose wishes are ever 
entitled to respectful consideration, the author would not have 
ventured to put to press were it not for the desire expressed that a 
memorial should be preserved of the notice taken in this place of 
an event so painfully distinguished as the Death of the late Presi- 
dent. The discourse, with all its defects, may answer this end. 
It will serve to show the mournful interest felt by the preacher and 
those whom he addressed in that afflictive dispensation ; and that 
they shared by sympathy in the wide-spread sorrows of their fellow- 
citizens under such severe national bereavement. 

It may be proper to premise at the same time, in explanation of 
the limited range of topics embraced in the following pages, that 
the author had previously addressed his Congregation exclusively 
upon the same subject in his ssrmon delivered on the Annual 
State Fast, Thursday the 8th of April.* As he was unwilling to 
repeat the sentiments then advanced, he avoided, so far as possible, 
their introduction into his discourse of the 14th of May ; and where 
the recurrence could not be prevented, he was careful to present 
his reflections under other forms. The length of the performance 
compelled the omission of several pages in the delivery ; and these 
have been supplied from the author's notes in the order and shape 
as originally prepared. 

In view of the many eloquent tributes to the memory of the 
lamented Harrison — worthy at once of the Subject, and the 
gifted eulogists — it can inspire no enviable emotions in the bosom 
of him who submits the production herewith offered to the public 
eye, to reflect on the broad contrast it exhibits in the scale of 
merit. He presents it according]-/ with the distrust inevitable to 
such consciousness. Proud hz ,,ould otherwise be of laying an 

* The text was selected froi,. ;\ xvi, 3-5. Intelligence of the 

death of President Harrison reached 'i'aunlon on Tuesday the 6th of April, 
in 56 hours from Washington. He expired in that city on Sunday morning 
at 1 o'clock . 



offering — proud of an opportunity of casting a bare pebble, if 
nothing more, on the Monumental Mound — the mighty sepulchral 
Cairn — reared by a nation's gratitude over the ashes of one of her 
best and bravest and noblest sons. 

To the public who lent him an indulgent audience on the oc- 
casion which called for the ensuing discourse — to those of his 
respected parishioners whose kindly approval of his humble endeav- 
ors to pay due honors to the Illustrious Dead, has been evinced by 
their request for the present publication — and to his estimable 
friend, Chief Justice Williams, (acting as their organ,) for the 
obliging terms in which such request was communicated — the 
author tenders in return his grateful acknowledgments. 



DISCOURSE. 

''Behold I die, but God shall be with you." 
Genesis, xlviii. 21. 

We are assembled, my friends, on an occasion which 
revives affecting memories. But we are come together 
at a time more favorable to calm reflection, than when 
on a former day, some few weeks since, we met 
in this place to ponder on the painful dispensation to 
which I allude, — that solemn National Bereavement 
which called our country to mourn the sudden demise 
of her venerated Chief Magistrate. 

The shock of the first tidjngs was naturally over- 
powering. It came with a whirlwind rush. Who 
can forget its intensity and force ? — -The ground seem- 
ed to quake at the thundering crash of the catastro- 
phe. The pillars of the Republic shook at the sound 
thereof. The curtains of the land trembled! 

In such an hour, vain were the attempt to gather 
up and set in order the collective lessons and admoni- 
tions which the bereavement was sent to teach. The 
fact — the stern, naked fact — -stood out in unquestioned 
shape to every man's discernment, that our President — 
that Harrison — was dead ! But it stood so close,— 
that dreadful fact — looming like a dark spectral form 
in huge dimensions before our eyes, that it seemed to 
fill the whole space of vision. We fazed — and our 
souls were humbled and awed. We gazed with 
hearts sickened — chilled by the frigid atmosphere 
condensed from the cold icy breath of death which 



was wafted around us. All we could know, could? 
feel, was the harrowing consciousness that we stood ire 
the presence of man's dread leveller, — that we were 
confronted, eye to eye, under the withering glance of 
the " pale monarch of the Tomb." The seat of pow- 
er, the loftiest in the land, which a little before was 
seen filled with the state-robed form of our Country's- 
Chief, was suddenly dispossessed of its proud occu- 
pant. Looking again, we saw enthroned the usurp- 
ing figure of the King of Terrors, scowling with wrath- 
ful brow, — his red right arm laid fearfully bare in 
judgment, and his ruthless dart brandished in terrific 
triumph before our aching sight. Yes, Death there 
reigned with mournful pomp, gloating upon the spoil — 
that noble spoil— which he had plucked with remorse- 
less grasp to enrich the trophies, — already too multi- 
plied, — of his insatiate conquests. Our eyes were 
rivetted ; our souls were struck aghast : We felt, every 
man of us, our own personal weakness, frailty and in- 
security ; and scarce another sentiment could our 
hearts embrace than that borne home by a voice from 
the invisible world, proclaiming — "Verily, every man 
at his best estate is altogether vanity." 

But time has mollified the sharper sensations of 
pain and terror and surprise. It has tranquillized our 
troubled spirits. The tide of a nation's grief, if it still 
flows deep and strong, now glides with noiseless 
course. No longer is it chafed upon its surface. No 
longer does it overpass its proper bounds, or sweep im- 
petuously with headlong violence over the length and 
breadth of the land. It is settled and reduced, daily 
working itself clearer, and already become a sedate and 
tractable current. And we from our present position, 
having receded thus far along the stream of time from the 



date of the afflictive event, are enabled to look back with 
sobered feelings upon the occurrence itself, to compare 
it with other like visitations from the hand of the Al- 
mighty, to weigh its consequences present and future, 
and to read and interpret the instructive monitory les- 
sons which God in His providence is thereby speaking 
unto us. 

I have chosen for my text the dying exclamation of a 
venerable man of ancient times, — a man of renown, — 
the patriarch Jacob, uttered on his affecting leave-tak- 
ing with Joseph, the child of his parental pride and 
object of his tenderest paternal love : " Behold I die," 
said he, "but God shall be with you." — The circum- 
stances under which this language was used, demand 
a brief notice, for the purpose of showing more dis- 
tinctly the adaptedness of the passage to the present 
occasion. 

Jacob at this juncture, was old and "well stricken in 
years." " The time drew nigh," (Moses tells us,) 
"when Israel must die." The event was a thing of 
course, following in the appointed order of nature. — 
Jacob's old age was comfortable and honorable. In 
outward circumstances he was prosperous. Instead 
of the impoverishment which at one period had threat- 
ened him, he had — by a sudden and unlooked for turn 
in his fortunes — been raised to a condition of ease and 
affluence. His posterity, already numerous, were in 
flourishing estate. They dwelt in a fertile district of 
the land of Egypt, living in peace and abundance. — 
The aged parent was looked up to by them with affec- 
tionate veneration. He was honored, still more, by 
Pharaoh and all his court, as the worthy sire of Egypt's 
temporal deliverer, — the man next in rank to Egypt's 
sovereign — Joseph, her far-famed viceroy. Yet Jacob 



must "go the way of all the earth." Neither wealth, 
greatness or honors, nor kindred attachments, nor noble 
alliances could screen him from the inevitable lot of 
man. The cypress path — that mournful avenue lead- 
ing downward to the house of death — his feet must 
tread as surely as the meanest of the sons of flesh. — 
But not with trembling steps did he approach life's 
verge. He leaned upon the arm of Abraham's God — 
content to go where God should lead — not doubting that 
the issue would be well, — not fearing that he should 
be guided to a better heritage than earth had offered, 
and an abode unspeakably more desirable than the 
terrestrial home he was about forever to resign. 

The patriarch was solicitous in his last mortal hours 
to bequeath a blessing to his offspring. Strong himself 
in faith, he wished like confidence of trust, and comfort 
of hope to be shared by those he might leave behind. 
The faithfulness of God he had known by happy expe- 
rience. Let but his offspring cleave to God and keep 
covenant with him, let them prove themselves children 
of faith emulous of its bright rewards, and the heirs of 
the same, nay even of richer blessings than had crowned 
his lot, they might hope to become. God would own 
them in this life as " a chosen generation," His " pe- 
culiar people ;" and in the world to come, they should 
share the glory of adoption among the sons of God. 

The immutability, in a word, of the overliving Jeho- 
vah, was the pillar and ground of the patriarch's faith and 
hope. "Behold I die," he testified, "but God shall 
be with you," — God, the everlasting Father, the Creator 
of the heavens and the earth, who fainteth not, neither 
ever is weary. The confidence of the dying believer 
was justified by the issue. Generations had come and 
gone after this aged seer's departure from the world, 



when Moses, taking up the historic pen, recorded it as 
the result, — the glorious result, — of all Israel's by-gone 
experience, — that "the Eternal God ivas their refuge, 
and underneath them were the everlasting arms." 

Having bequeathed the blessing, — first to Joseph, 
and next to all his progeny, — the patriarch died. For 
it came to pass, we are told, that "when Jacob had made 
an end of commanding his sons, he yielded up the 
ghost and was gathered unto his people." Great were 
the demonstrations of public sorrow for the loss of so 
good a man, so venerable a sage and saint and sire. 
They mourned for him, says the sacred historian, "with 
a very sore lamentation." The obsequies were sol- 
emnized with all the funeral pomp which Theban art 
and princely munificence and the costliest tribute of 
filial affection and piety could command or bestow. 
"With chariots and horsemen, a very great company," 
the embalmed remains were escorted by the nobles of 
Egypt to the borders of the realm, and there consigned 
to the sole custody of the house of Joseph and his 
brethren. Thence the mournful procession pursued its 
way to the memorable field before Mamre — that conse- 
crated ground, which sepulchred the dust of Jacob's 
progenitors. And there, where they buried Abraham 
and Sarah his wife — there, where they buried Isaac 
and Rebecca his wife, — there, where reposed Leah, — 
was entombed the reverend form of this man of God, — 
heir of their virtues, faith and hopes, — with them to 
rest till the hour of destined emancipation from the dis- 
honors of the grave, then to rise and live and die no 
more. 

Reverting to the text, let us indulge, in the first place, 
a few reflections on the event announced in the open- 
ing clause ; secondly, consider it in special connexion 



10 

with the mournful case of Bereavement which now fills 
our land with gloom and our hearts with sadness ; and 
thirdly, remark, on the ground of comfort furnished 
from the concluding sentiment in the text, that, — where- 
as Man dies, and the excellent, the useful and the 
honored of the earth must be removed from this mortal 
life, — yet God lives, and He will be with us. 

I. Let us reflect on the solemn event announced in 
the opening words of the text — "Behold, I die :" Thus 
spake Jacob; and myriads of tongues, in life's extrem- 
ity, have uttered the same language, with like forecast 
of the self-same lot when felt to be inevitable and near. 
I die : — Oh what meaning, what depth of meaning, is 
involved in that little saying ! Who can tell the mo- 
mentous secret ? Who can penetrate its dread obscu- 
rity ? It is a mystery too deep for human solution. In 
vain has the anxious research, in vain has the sagacious 
mind, in vain has the boasted philosophy of man, for 
the space of six thousand years, been exercised on this 
great problem. Darkness as thick, ignorance as pro- 
found, reigns over the subject as when the speculative 
faculty of human reason first sought to probe the inscru- 
table enigma. All that we are apprized of, beyond the 
scanty lights of revelation — which last relate chiefly to 
the moral issues of the present existence considered as 
a state probationary — all else we are apprized of dis- 
tinctly, is, what is presented to outward observation. 
It is confined to the few simple phenomena, palpable to 
sense and totally variant in their character — the dis- 
criminative features, we mean, pertaining respectively 
to Life and Death. In the first man takes shape, and 
emerges to the scenes of active, visible existence. He 
comes forth on the world's broad theatre : He breathes, 
feels, moves — walks the earth's surface with firm and 



11 

elastic foot — mixes in its bustling scenes — tastes its 
mingled cup of pains and sweets — converses with other 
beings like himself — and by his material organs of sense, 
communicates with, or is made cognizant of, the diver- 
sified structures and bodies with which he finds himself 
encompassed. He purposes and plans, loves or hates, 
hopes or fears, struggles and toils successfully or oth- 
erwise ; and he lives on till the active, breathing, con- 
scious frame, — if no violence precipitate its wreck, — 
yielding to wear and weakness and sinking into sure 
decrepitude, resigns its functions one by one, and at 
length ceases its play and movement altogether. The 
heart then refuses to pulsate ; the vital current freezes 
in the veins; and the features of the countenance, be- 
fore suffused with healthful beaming animation, assume 
the mournful hues and emblems of a change most op- 
posite, which we distinguish by the name of death. 
The transformation which follows, — so complete in its 
contrasts, and at once so sad and strange and inscruta- 
ble, — the Scriptures describe in familiar but energetic 
terms, and with a variety of expression inimitable for 
truth, tenderness and beauty : — "As for man, his days 
are as grass ; as a flower of the field, so he flourished! ; 
for the wind passeth over it and it is gone ; and the 
place thereof shall know it no more. For there is hope 
of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, 
and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. 
Through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth 
boughs like a plant : but man," (a "flower" — no vig- 
orous "tree" or firm-set oak,) "man dieth and wasteth 
away ; yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he . ? " 
Aye, Where ! — I have spoken of the phenomena sub- 
jected to observation. But these make not up the all 



12 






of that wondrous enigma — the living, dying creature, 

man. 

'Tis not the all of Life, to live, 
Nor all of Death, to die. 

The Bible settles this point conclusively. It teaches, 
that "there is a Spirit in man:" and that "the spirit 
shall return to God who gave it." If to God ; still, 
where ? Ask Sense, and it answers not. Ask Reason, 
and she is dumb. The combined wisdom of all hu- 
man generations is here perplexed, baffled and con- 
founded. 

The question of most importance to determine, is, 
what is the fate of the undying spirit ? What, of the 
soul of a man- — his responsible soul — which both scrip- 
ture and the instincts of our common humanity fore- 
warn us, shall by no means share the destruction of 
the earthly form. It lives, and must live on in no de- 
pendent relations upon what is outward, frail and cor- 
ruptible. Observe the dignified assurance on this pcint 
implied by the very language of Jacob: — " I die !" 
said he : — Who, what dies ? His being's self — the 
sum total of the man ? Was that to perish ? Was 
all to become extinct — to be annihilated? Could the 
patriarch intend such sentiment ? — What voice was it 
which spoke from his lips, when about to leave this 
world, he ejaculated the saying, " Behold, I die ?" 
Whence came it? From the outer or the inner man ? 
From the body or the body's guest — its indwelling 
spirit ? Came it not from the latter — from th(! secret 
chambers of the soul, — the deathless spirit enshrined 
in the fleshly frame, and which lodged therein, only as 
a transient occupant, waiting for a remove in the mor- 
tal hour to some new abode in a world beyond the 
grave ? What means the expression then — / die ? Can 






13 

it import aught else than a change in the mode or con- 
dition of being — the percipient nature remaining as be- 
fore, only introduced into some other situation adapted 
to its capacities and character? Mark the presumptive 
evidence of this in the composure with which the good 
old man contemplates his approaching dissolution. Hear 
him, like Joseph after him, giving "commandment con- 
cerning hisbones." He charges hischildren where tode- 
posit the poor shattered remains of his mortal tabernacle- 
when its walls, like those of a frail crumbling tenement, 
battered by the storms or sinking under the weight of 
years— should be broken down and demolished : He 
charges them where the mournful wreck — that venerable 
ruin, should be laid up — namely, "in the cave of Machpe- 
lah which Abraham, his grandsire, had bought with the 
field of Ephron for a possession of a burying-place." He 
speaks asone impressed with the hope of a sure and joyful 
resurrection, when the mouldering relics of his now dying 
body, bequeathed meanwhile to the pious charge of his 
offspring, should be fashioned anew and built up into a 
glorious fabric meet for the resumed uses of its old pro- 
prietor, the spirit's self. He speaks with the tranquillity 
at least of one, quitting one residence only to go to 
another not less desirable and attractive — a change 
of course, inspiring no regrets in the prospect. And 
in this he shared the common sentiments of mankind, — 
nay, rather of the good, in every age. That death, so 
far from implying a cessation to be, is simply a transi- 
tion stage, a remove from a visible to some future in- 
visible sphere, with altered conditions merely of the 
same sentient nature, is instinctly felt and confessed by 
all. We ourseh es, unconsciously perhaps, write it upon 
the tombstones of the dead, when we say of them, that 
they "departed this life." And it is worthy of note that 

9 



14 

when in the gospel history we read of the "decease 5 
which Jesus was to accomplish at Jerusalem,* and also 
in one of the Epistles of Peter, of the same event (ex- 
pressed by the self-same term,) anticipated by that 
apostle as shortly to be experienced by himself,! the 
word in both cases is found, on turning to the original,, 
to be Exodos, — meaning a departure or going out y 
i. e. of the soul from its old companion, the body, — in 
obvious allusion to the migration of the Israelites from 
Egypt. And the idea conveyed is — one equally beau- 
tiful and just — that death is simply an exodus, — a pas- 
sage of the spirit from one world to another, from the 
life that now is, to a second ordained to follow. Or if 
more be implied, it denotes a levelling of the clay-built 
fabric for the purpose of lending the egress appointed 
to the before imprisoned resident, the soul, that it may 
journey to its future destined habitation. Death con- 
ducts it to issues — from probation to consequences ; 
and a passage it opens for all the righteous to rewards the 
richest in a brighter world. To them, it is a going from 
a scene of toils to a place of rest, from a field of con- 
flict to a seat of triumph, from a land of shadows to a 
realm of light, from an Eden despoiled to a Paradise 
Regained. The body corruptible they exchange for a 
form incorruptible ; and in dropping the fleshly mor- 
tal tabernacle their spirits, when dismissed by death, 
gain a nobler mansion, a " building of God, the House 
eternal in the Heavens." The transit, be it for good 
or evil — a gain or a forfeiture of happiness according to 
the condition and fitnesses of souls, must, nevertheless, 
be made. AH which constitutes the man, — the vital 
quickening spirit, — at death departs. It launches forth 

"Luke ix. 31 
MI Pc^r .. 16 



on that mysterious deep from whose darksome borne \m 
voyager ever returns. But, go where it may, there 
God is. Go where it may — above, beneath, around, — 
forever and ever — it is enveloped by His spirit as an all- 
pervading element — an ocean without limit — soundless, 
shoreless, infinite. 

Solemn is the thought, that into such a presence it 
•must go ! That death transmits it, naked and all un- 
covered, yet in other respects unchanged — with all its 
affections, faculties and propensions, with all its moral 
habits, and all its dread and awful responsibilities fast 
cleaving to its elemental substance, — aye, that in such 
state death shall usher it into the presence of a Bein°- 
whose eyes are "a flaming fire" — from Him to receive 
the righteous awards adjudged to its deservings, and to 
become happy or wretched according as its frame and 
inclinations are in unison, or otherwise, with the essen- 
tial purities and everlasting harmonies of the Divine 
Mind. 

Contemplated merely as a separation from earthly 
scenes and things terrestrial — as a rupture of sublunary 
ties, a sundering of present companionships, the force- 
ful relinquishment of the toils and projects, the cares 
and solicitudes, the vanities and vexations, the strifes 
and emulations, the joys and sorrows of this mortal ex- 
istence — contemplated in this light, death is an event 
sufficiently momentous, it would seem, to awaken fre- 
quent and serious meditation. But considered in that 
graver aspect suggested, as the soul's dismission — an 
accountable agent — into the hands of its Maker and 
Judge, it is unspeakably more solemn, Proportionably, 
a more earnest heed and more anxious watchfulness we 
should exercise, lest it fall upon us unawares — perad- 
venture when we are least expectant of its coming and 



all unfitted for the eventful journey to which it shall 
summon us. It may visit us on a sudden — "in a mo- 
ment, in the twinkling of an eye" — blasting at once 
our secular plans and enterprises, scarring up the blithe- 
some gayeties and enchantments of this transitory life, 
and hurrying us tc a world where they will find no 
place. Always its onset threatens ; never can it be far 
distant. No station, age or character, can plead im- 
munity from its quick, intrusive approach. Nought 
can shield from the sure arrest, or avert the final resist- 
less stroke of death. "Behold," says Jacob, "I, (even 
/,) must DIE." 

II. This brings us to the second head of the dis- 
course, namely, the consideration of the event in special 
connexion with the late National Bereavement we are 
assembled to mourn. 

First keep in mind the illustrative case we have 
drawn from the sacred volume. Jacob, you observe, 
shared the general lot of all. Though a descendant of a 
renowned line, — the illustrious head of a numerous 
household, by all affectionately cherished and revered, — 
a man of more than earthly, a divine nobility, honored 
as he was with the title of a "Prince of God," — a sire 
whose name in after times was destined to become the 
glorious patronymic of a people the most extraordinary 
in its fortunes of all others in human annals, — this Nes- 
tor in years — the ancient and honorable — a man cmi- 
ment for piety and virtue and every ripened excellence 
which made his hoary head a crown of glory — yes he, 
that patriarch, must bow to the might of the inexora- 
ble Destroyer. His sphere of ease and affluence, his 
worldly dignities, his outward comforts, his fields and 
flocks, his friends and home, and the tender charities 
and soothing sweets of household loves,— all, all he 



17 

must resign. Death spared him not. It marked 
him for its victim; and "Jacob yielded up the ghost 
and was gathered unto his people." 

Go then, nor wonder as ye go, to gaze on a fresher 
spoil of the universal Conqueror. Sadder it is ; but is 
it more strange? More affecting, we grant it,— more 
impressive to ourselves by reason of its coming so close- 
ly home, and working disappointment and a most pain. 
ful revulsion in our fond prospective calculations; but 
it is only an incident natural in the order of Providence 
and that might be reasonably looked for. It should 
justify accordingly not more surprise than any ordinary 
occurrence in the ravages of mortality. With the thou- 
sand memorials nevertheless perpetually before us of 
man's insecure hold on life and all sublunary posses- 
sions, it seems that another lesson was wanting— such 

stern and astounding lesson as God has now given us 

to teach more convincingly that affecting truth. It has 
come to rebuke in loudest tones our pride and confi- 
dence in an arm of flesh. It has come to remind us 
with an emphasis the most impressive, that 

Man is but vanity and dust 
In all his flower and prime. 

Few parallels, it must be confessed, have been furnish- 
ed of like sudden reversal of the conditions of our poor, 
frail humanity. Here we behold one, recently lifted 
to a pinnacle of power, loaded with honors, and exult- 
ing in the flattering hopes and joyous elations of the 
most enviable sphere of earthly aggrandizement, now 
reft of all, stricken down by the insatiate shaft of 
death. The demise of the late President was an event 
put out of our calculations. It was not taken into 
account— seriously so— as amoii£ the contingencies of 
things. Practically, at least, the apprehension was 



18 

banished as not turning on the bare possibles in the 
designing wisdom of Heaven. That our Nation's 
presiding head, so lately borne with enthusiastic de- 
monstrations of rejoicing to the Chair of State, — he;, 
"the observed of all observers," — the object of un- 
bounded confidence and exultation to millions of hearts 
— our Country's Ruler — the hero, statesman, patriot, 
sage — could be thrust down from his proud pre-emi- 
nence by the rude presumptuous hand of death — in 
short, that Harrison should " shake hands with dust, 
and call the worm his kinsman," — it was a notion, we 
fancied, too idle to be entertained! We almost shared 
the superstition of his old savage foes, w 7 ho, when see- 
ing him go forth from successive battle-fields unharmed 
by the showers of balls that poured their leaden hail 
about him, thought and called him invulnerable ; — so 
we, in our vain imaginings, believed him protected 
from the shafts of the Destroyer in any sort, during 
the term at least of his chosen Magistracy. Yet ere 
the festive ceremonies which graced his triumph, had 
all been celebrated throughout the Republic, a piercing 
note was heard — a funeral knell — ;c grating harsh thun- 
der" on our astonished ears. It rose and blended with 
the gratulatory shouts that rang rejoicingly over the 
land. It told another — a shuddering tale ; — that the 
man — mere man he was — for whom such jubilee was 
solemnized — that our President was no more ! In- 
stead of the official robes in which but a little before, 
his person was arrayed, another vesture, the shroud of 
death, enwrapped his pale lifeless form. And a nation 
bereaved, in the spirit of deep heaviness, clad in the 
habiliments of woe, gathered with aching awe around 
his mournful bier. 



19 



Look again to the completeness, (he suddenness, 
of the contrast. Compare the brilliant flush of pro- 
spects in the outset, with the tragic sequel-the 
disastrous death-blight-which so speedily followed 
God purposed it to stain the pride of human glory. 
And we are witnesses how vain is the hope of man, 
when by so dire a catastrophe, in a month— "a little 
month,"— a Nation's shout of triumph should be suc- 
ceeded by a Nation's burst of lamentation. The one 
the swelling acclamation, rolling over the land like the 
sound of many waters, had not yet died away • It was 
still reverberating over hill and dale, and lake and for- 
est and prairie— awakening the echoes of distant moun- 
tains—leaping adown the pine-clad vallies of the majes- 
tic Oregon and deepening the roar of its tumbling dash- 
ing tides .—Still was the sound heaving and undulating 
to know no pause till mingling with the answering 
sough on the storm-beat shores of. the mighty Pacific • 
-in that glad hour, a cry was heard, loud and thrilling 
as when the flower of Egypt was smitten and laid low 
by the hand of the destroying Angel. It outvoiced the 
thundering huzzas which rent the air. It proclaimed 
that death was in the midst-throned in high places 
Anon, the pride, the joy, the boast of millions of exul 
tant hearts were withered, broken, crushed A 
mournful dirge for a Nation's loss poured forth its sol- 
emn wail ; and the passing breeze bore in its bosom a 
country's requiem for her Chieftain's rest. 

Still, bells were tolled, and music swelled, and ban- 
ners streamed, and processions marched, and cannon 
boomed ; but the pageant, in purpose, alas how changed » 
The marshalled trains,-™ more with light step & and 
joyful air as when thronging the track of a triumphal 
car,-were now wending their way with downcast 



20 

looks and measured tread to the doors of the house of 
death. Mournful was the chime of the pealing bells ; — 
and sad was the drum-beat, its muffled tones falling 
like lead upon the ear. The waving banners were 
draped with black, in token mutely eloquent of the 
weeping character of the parade : and the cannon's 
sound was but the minute gun that signalled the 
movement of the slow-paced hearse as it passed to the 
burial of the mighty Dead. 

Talk ye of glory — the world's applause — mere earth- 
ly fame ? Here learn its value. "The paths of glory 
lead but to the grave." Boast ye of power — the prize 
so ardently coveted, so tenaciously grasped w 7 hen won? 
How brief — how frail, its tenure! 

When on that memorable day, the 9th of February 
last, — the anniversary of General Harrison's nativity — 
with the prospect then so near fruition of his approach- 
ing elevation to the highest office in the Republic, — he 
made his entry into the capital of the nation as Presi- 
dent elect of these United States, — greeted by the 
plaudits of the thousand-voiced multitudes awaiting his 
arrival, — by the ringing of bells, the salutes of artillery, 
and the welcome more grateful of civic authorities ten- 
dered in the presence of statesmen and legislators, a 
large collective body — among them, men of renown, 
many of the civil fathers, the Paladins of the land — on 
that proud day, could the personage they met to honor, 
have foreseen that ere the lapse of eight short weeks, — 
having in the interval readied the summit of his ambi- 
tion, having been inaugurated the Chief Magistrate of 
Seventeen Millions of freemen, having been seated in 
the Presidential Chair, and lodged in the mansion of 
suite — aye, could he have foreseen that within such 
brief space, he would be called to resign all his worldly 



21 

honors, and go from that princely abode to his last long 
home, exchanging a palace for a tomb, would his ear 
have been regaled by the voice of popular applause ? 
Would it have drunk in melody from the pa?ans shouted 
in his praise? Would he not have said, like Anthony, 
with the affecting presage of what so soon and so surely 
must befal him, 

They tell me 'tis my Birthday; 
But I'll keep it- 



-with double pomp of Sadness? 

Nay, not sadness, we will hope : a brighter augury, we 
trust, may have cheered his heart. Realizing the van- 
ity of things sublunary, looking forward unmoved to the 
hour when the bright brief vapor of his earthly exist- 
ence should fade and be exhaled — when the bubble of 
life — this mortal life — should break, dissolved into Im- 
mortality — with a soul armed with faith, — faith in a 
promised victory over the grave, — and with the con- 
scious elevation of spirit thence inspired, fain would we 
hope that our departed Friend, on the eventful day of 
which we speak, might rather have exclaimed, in the 
forecast of life's hastening close — "Better is the day of 
Death, than the day of my Birth." 

And now that he has passed to his final audit — gone 
where neither the praises nor the censures of men can 
soothe or pain his ear, — now r , when he sleeps with kings 
and counsellors of the earth, what is it in the life of 
Harrison we look back upon with most interest ? Is it 
his valor as a soldier or his fame as a general ? Is it 
his prowess, in war, when fighting in defence of his coun- 
try's rights and honor, — her freedom, soil, and hearths 
and altars — he bore aloft her starry ensign in triumph 
as at the Wabash and the Thames — that meteor flag 
which mid the storm of battle "streamed like the thun- 
der-gust against the wind ?" 
3 



22 

Or, do we revert with higher satisfaction to his civi! 
services, — to the good he did the slate rather in coun- 
cil than the field — in his capacity of Territorial Gov- 
ernor, or as the people's Representative in Legislative 
halls, or as diplomatic Envoy to a foreign court, — these 
dignities all crowned as they were, with the brightest 
wreath a grateful country could bestow, when summon- 
ing him to the first station in her gift, she saluted him 
the nation's Chief? Is it, I ask, his enjoyment of 
honors like these, united to the manly exercise of the 
trusts thereby imposed, — that we recall and cherish at 
this hour with fondest remembrance ? 

Say rather, is it not the hope he justified of having 
won the meed of a " good soldier of Christ Jesus," — 
that in the evening of his days, if not afore in life's me- 
ridian, he opened his ear to the voice of religious Truth ; 
and with a soul athirst for richer happiness than earth 
can offer, turned for refreshment to the living streams 
that gush from the wells of salvation ? Is it not the be- 
lief that then at least, (ah, who would grudge him the 
blest distinction ?) he attained and answered to that 
name — "above all Greek, above all Roman fame," 

Christian, the highest style of man? 

What boots it to him aught else he gained ? What, 
the lustre of his heroic deeds ? What, the eclat of his 
hard-earned titles to living or posthumous renown ? 
And what but his hope; in Christ and a humble confi- 
dence of having a name written on the Book of Life, 
could sustain his soul and bear it up with constancy and 
courage in the sudden wreck, and midst the pains and 
wi ;iknesses, of dissolving nature? 

Who is there that reflects not now with solemn joy 
on the testimony he bore to his "profound reverence for 



23 

the Christian Religion;" and " the thorough conviction" 
he expressed, that "sound morals, religious liberty and 
a just sense of religious responsibility are essentially 
connected with all true and lasting happiness?" This 
testimony he uttered, (and he lived not in vain if only to 
give it : — His name shall live forever green, a name of 
glory, coupled with the memory of so public and solemn 
a proclamation :) he uttered it, not amid the pains and 
glooms of threatening dissolution : He uttered it not 
when life's margin was foreseen to be near and so short- 
ly to be touched : He uttered it with a voice of strength, 
in the vigor of health and animation, on that proud day, 
the palmiest in his life, when standing in the presence 
of forty thousand witnesses, he took the Inaugural oath. 
This it was that made his sun when near its dip, "seem 
larger at its setting." And may we not hope, rejoic- 
ingly hope, that it sunk to rise again ? That no sooner 
had it disappeared below our darkened horizon than it 
emerged to a brighter orient, — in a morning without 
clouds, the morning of eternity, — and mounted, full-orb- 
ed, its destined heaven ? 

III. I pass to remark in the last place on the comfort 
derived from the concluding words of the text, namely, 
that "God will be with us." 

Great as is the loss which our country mourns, God's 
presence is sufficient to make amplest amends, and 
lighten the gloom of our affliction. Man dies ; but the 
Creator lives : The Omnipotent reigns : "His faithful- 
ness is unto all generations." The hopes we fasten on 
the creature — like golden weights too weakly bound 
by brittle threads to a frail sinking prop — we have only 
to carry up and attach to an everlasting chain linked to 
the pillars of the Almighty's throne, and then will they 
be held secure : No one shall fall or perish. 



24 

It is astonishing that with our manifold experience 
of the certainty of other disappointments, we make not 
God our refuge. Alas, 1 fear, we have little faith. We 
distrust the shelter of an Almighty wing. Practically, 
we live without God in the world. But, has His care 
of us ever failed ? In that darker hour, when our 
country's political savior — when Washington was 
removed from life, we thought that her palladium, nay 
more, that her tutelary guardian, was withdrawn. The 
" glory departed," we thought, was in that same hour 
written upon our walls and muniments. A flood of 
evils, it was predicted, was shortly to deluge the land. 
All that was goodly and precious in possession, all the 
thick-clustering blossoms of hope and promise, we fear- 
ed, were to be scattered and destroyed. The early 
overthrow of our civil institutions, the eventual un- 
hingement of the whole social fabric, were reckoned 
among the consequences pronounced inevitable. Such 
were the prognosticks when Washington expired. 

The country lived, notwithstanding our alarms. It 
survived that melancholy event and every danger it ap- 
peared to foretoken. And in all subsequent vicissitudes, 
as a gallant bark, under a succession of commanders, it 
has withstood the buffettings of winds and waves : — 
Whether in sunshine or in storm, in rough or smooth, 
gliding o'er placid seas, or sailing through rocky straits 
— though ever and anon encountering some wild and 
roaring rapid — still, the Ship of State has bravely sped 
or plunged ; and yet she rides — in safety rides — pursu- 
ing her bold and onward way. The retrospect we offer 
that it may inspire us with gratitude for past deliver- 
ances, and teach the lesson of manly faith and hope in 
God. But by no means should it warrant a fool-hardy 
confidence and self-conceit, with respect to our fortunes 



25 

for the future. Behold, God has cared for us with all 
this care, despite our undeservings. Haply, He has 
seen in us sufficient virtue — in the proportion of the 
" ten righteous men" to the collective mass of the com- 
munity — to serve as the conservative element, the na- 
tion's salt, to keep it hitherto from decay. But God is 
bound to no such maximum of a people's virtue as the 
pledge of His protection, to insure in perpetuity His 
mercies. That He has spared us heretofore, demands 
our grateful wonder. It is a mark — a most signal mark 
— of His gracious forbearance. God, nevertheless, may 
any moment open the windows of heaven to pour down 
the storms of His wrath upon a guilty land- And if 
we shut our ears to reproof; if we refuse the voice of 
instruction ; if neither from His chastenings we learn 
submission, nor from His exuberant blessings the duties 
of thankfulness and obedience; — in a word, if renounc- 
ing His yoke and scorning His judgments, we harden 
ourselves against the Lord and think to prosper, — His 
vengeful thunders will not always sleep : They will 
wake, at length, and burst to crush and overwhelm us. 
God, we should remember, need not so much as smite, 
that He may destroy. He has only to refrain His provi- 
dence — He has only to call off the guards, His holy an- 
gels, from the walls of our Jerusalem, and our doom is 
sealed : 

We sink, by no judicial stroke of heaven 
But nature's course, as sure as plummets fall. 

God is absolute ; and may effect His purposes for 
good or evil, assuredly, without the help of men, sepa- 
rate or combined. He, nevertheless, works by means ; 
and intelligent agents He deigns to employ in the exe- 
cution of His designs. If He purposes good concern- 
ing a people, He knows how and when to raise up the 



26 

fitting instruments, and shape and adapt them to His 
uses. Never will they be wanting when His wisdom 
shall perceive them to he meet. The age is past when 
a nation's being, a nation's destiny, or a nation's happi- 
ness can be supposed to hang on the breath of any in- 
dividual. The case was otherwise — God suffered it — 
in times gone by, times of popular ignorance and degra- 
dation. Then an individual, some solitary unit in so- 
ciety, was every thing, and the mass was nothing. — 
Now, the scale of reckoning is reversed. The mass it 
is which is the all in all. The mass it is which rules 
and arbitrates. The mass it is which wills and gov- 
erns. A citizen, if elevated to a place of power, is only 
the people's servant, — their creature, and bare official. 
He is the type of the popular mind, the organ of the 
popular will, the exponent of the national sentiment. 
Removed by the stroke of death or otherwise, substi- 
tutes are at hand — seldom difficult to find — competent 
to supply his place. The saying in France, a half cen- 
tury ago — then wickedly applied to sanction a stu- 
pendous crime — is yet strictly true, that "if the King, 
(a ruler,) dies, the nation lives ;" — lives, that is to say, 
till it shall have forfeited the protective care and indul- 
gence of heaven. And so with us, if a President dies, 
the Republic lives: and hands there are, strong — and 
heads there are, wise — and hearts there are, honest — 
and souls there are, virtuous, soundly principled and 
alive to their country's good — these all are left to us. 
Enough, in fine, there is of talent and worth and wis- 
dom and integrity and patriotism to meet the wants of 
the State, and grapple with any supposable emergences, 
(if God will aid,) that are likely to happen. 

It has been sagaciously remarked by an able writer 
of the times, that " there is always a vast floating capi- 



27 

tal of intellect which only requires to be directed into 
the proper channels to multiply an hundred fold. Great 
occasions seem always to call forth great minds. — 
Meanwhile, nature," says he, (or rather nature's God 
— nature understood in such sense,) "in her boundless 
and untraceable prodigality, allows much of her noblest 
creation, the inventive and intelligent mind of man, to 
run to waste." The reflection is encouraging. Ob- 
servation amply verifies its truth. Let a great crisis 
occur amongst us, as again and again has been witnes- 
sed, and some bold mastering spirit will doubtless start 
up to cope with its difficulties, — and successfully cope 
with them — if " God be with us." And helpers will 
not be slack to hearken to their country's call, and lend 
their noble energies in the hour of her distresses to aid 
in breasting the storm and carrying the nation safely 
through the most formidable passes she may encounter. 

So it has been from the beginning: So it will be 
evermore — if, I repeat, " God shall be with us" a pro- 
pitious Power : — and propitious He will prove if we 
learn wisdom from His disciplinary providence. Our 
fathers, with all their other reliances, fixed their trust 
supremely on God. Their children have only to make 
Him their Friend, and around their institutions will be 
reared a bulwark more solid than walls of brass. For 
the security of all which they hold most dear, they may 
confide in God, and will find in Him a Defender who 
is invincible. 

That God is with us, I augur from the impressions 
produced by the late public Bereavement. I augur it 
from the noble beatings of the American heart in sym- 
pathy as for a common loss, on the demise of our Chief 
Magistrate. 1 augur it from the generous appreciation, 
so widely manifested among men of all classes and all 



28 

complexional shades of party sentiment and bias, in 
respect to the personal worth and high-souled patriotism 
and eminent public services, both in manhood's prime 
and the decline of age — all, in a word, that was truly 
great and good in the character and life of the Chieftain 
we have come to mourn. I augur it from the instinctive 
impulse every where beheld, with (ew exceptions, to 
adore the Hand of God under such sad solemn dispen- 
sation. 1 augur it from the spectacle this day displayed 
— a spectacle sublime — of a great nation humbling her- 
self beneath the frowns of heaven, and now in " her 
weeds and her widowhood" — upon her bended knees 
— callingupon God to sanctify the smitingsof His rod. 
Yes, God is with us — to day is with us, — to mark 
the attitude of a prostrate people, falling low at His foot- 
stool in reverent acknowledgment of His omnipotent 
dominion. God is with us, to listen to the suppliant 
voices lifted in deprecation of His judgments, and with 
entreaties for the reviving visits of His love. His 
spirit, I will not doubt, is moving upon the face of the 
troubled waters — a Nation's tears — to tranquillize its 
turbid elements, and soothe and hush and sanctify our 
griefs. " He stilleth the noise of the sea, the noise of 
the waves, and the tumults of the people."" May He 
send peace to every bosom, — peace to the hearts of 
rulers and ruled ! May heaven's own peace be shed 
diffusively abroad over a mourning land ! And may 
the mystic Dove which symbolizes its presence, ever 
with outspread wing, hover in mercy over all its rejoic- 
ing habitations ! 



LLa) 



